


you taught me the courage of stars (before you left)

by oopshidaisy



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Babysitting, Found Family, Gen, Mourning, POV Child, Stream of Consciousness, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 05:31:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18614125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oopshidaisy/pseuds/oopshidaisy
Summary: “You’re really smart, you know that?”“I get it from my dad,” Morgan says.





	you taught me the courage of stars (before you left)

**Author's Note:**

> title is from 'saturn' by sleeping at last

When Morgan gets full marks on her science quiz, Uncle Rhodey picks her up and spins her around and says, “Your dad would be so proud,” and Morgan smiles with gaps in her teeth and replies, “I know.”

People seem to love telling her about her dad. Her mom’s pretty busy, what with being the CEO of a company _and_ a superhero, so Morgan has a lot of babysitters. Her favorite is Uncle Rhodey, because he tells lots of stories about when her dad was younger, and all the trouble they got into together at MIT. Rhodey lets her eat the candy that her mom says will make her teeth rot, even if he doesn’t let her eat as much as her dad used to. He gives her piggy-back rides and teaches her physics, and after a couple of months he brings Uncle Bruce with him to help her with chemistry and biology.

“But I like physics,” she says.

“So did your dad,” Uncle Bruce murmurs. A lot of people tell her she’s like her dad; it makes her proud every time. “But it’s good to be well-rounded. Your dad could always keep up with me when it came to biology, even if he didn’t like it so much.”

Morgan chews on her lower lip. She eyes the beginner’s chemistry kit that Bruce has brought along, and nods decisively. “Okay,” she says. “I’m gonna be good at all the sciences.”

“I bet you are, kiddo,” Bruce says and ruffles her hair.

When she starts school, her teachers don’t know what to do with her. The word _gifted_ gets thrown around a lot, and Morgan hears her teacher hissing to the principle, “She’s Tony Stark’s daughter, what did we honestly expect?”

“Are you sure you can’t teach her?”

“She keeps talking about things I don’t understand,” Miss Watson complains. “She says _Bruce Banner_ ’s teaching her science at home.”

“Oh,” says the principle. “Well. Maybe we should talk to Mrs Potts.”

Morgan has to sit outside when her mom speaks to the school. She hears raised voices, but can’t make out the words. She scuffs her sneakers against the floor, relishing in the little black marks she leaves, saying she was here.

“Don’t do that,” Peter says, nervously. “You could get in trouble.”

Peter’s not old enough to be an uncle, so she just calls him Peter. He takes ‘keeping an eye on her’ much too seriously, in Morgan’s opinion.

“I’m already in trouble,” Morgan says.

“No! No, it’s just that they all want the best for you, and they don’t know what the best for you _means_ right now.” Peter has the kindest smile. It always makes Morgan feel better. “You’re really smart, you know that?”

“I get it from my dad,” Morgan pronounces.

Peter glances at the closed door. “And your mom, too,” he says.

Morgan nods. Peter rubs a comforting hand across her shoulder.

Later that night, at home, her mom asks, “Do you like going to school?”

Morgan shakes her head.

“Don’t you have friends there? I thought you liked that boy, Freddie.”

“Freddie’s okay,” Morgan says. “But I prefer hanging out with my out-of-school friends.”

“Your out-of-school friends?”

“You know, all my uncles and aunts who aren’t really uncles and aunts. Those friends. I learn more from them than school anyway.”

Her mom agrees to home-schooling after that, although she continually voices concerns about Morgan’s social development. Morgan thinks she’s doing just fine at socially developing even if she doesn’t have any friends her own age. Plus, the field trips she goes on are so much better than if she was still at school.

She flies with Uncle Rhodey to Wakanda for spring break and spends almost the entire time in Shuri’s lab. Shuri never met her dad, but she says she would’ve liked to. “I could’ve taught him a thing or two,” Shuri says, while Morgan disassembles some of the vibranium technology.

“He would’ve liked that,” Morgan says. “But I guess you’ll just have to teach me instead.”

“Alright, pipsqueak,” Shuri laughs. “Now let me show you how to put it back together.”

Her mom won’t let her go to space with Auntie Nebula, even when Morgan tells her it’s just as safe as flying in an airplane. “Tell her, Nebula,” she says, tugging on Nebula’s hand. But Nebula just looks at her mom and something passes between them, unspoken, and Nebula’s shaking her head.

“It would not be for the best. I apologize, little one.”

Morgan pouts. “I’m going to miss you the most,” she confides, making sure the other Guardians aren’t close enough to hear. She wraps her arms around Nebula’s waist and smiles when she feels a hand pet her hair, hesitantly.

“I will miss you, too,” Nebula says.

It always makes her jealous when the Guardians and Carol come back from their travels with stories of other planets and galaxies. Uncle Bruce has been teaching her astronomy, and every time he points out a star or planet she thinks of all the heroes she knows who are out there, exploring the vast unknown. She thinks of that lame TV show from the 60s her dad used to make her watch, and those movies Peter is always going on about. She asks her mom when she’ll be old enough to go to space.

Her mom cries.

During their next astronomy lesson, Uncle Bruce asks her, “Did anyone ever tell you about when your dad was in space?”

“He did,” Morgan replies.

“What did he tell you?”

“That he made friends with Auntie Nebula, and then Carol brought him back to earth. Carol’s really, really strong.”

“She is,” Uncle Bruce says. He sighs, adjusting the telescope between them. “Your mom says you want to go up there.”

“It makes her sad,” Morgan says. “Why?”

“Your dad only told you the good stuff.”

“There was bad stuff?”

Uncle Bruce tucks her under his arm. “Even your dad got scared sometimes. He didn’t much like to talk about what happened once he got home, but…for a while there, your mom thought he wasn’t going to come back.”

“But he did.”

When she looks up, there are tears glistening in the corners of Uncle Bruce’s eyes. “Yeah,” he says, a little gruffly. “He did.”

Morgan hasn’t seen Harley since the funeral. He’s only just finished school and has an internship at Stark Industries lined up for his gap year. But at the funeral he’d come up to her, shoulders hunched over, and handed her a brand-new Dora the Explorer watch.

“It’s—” He’d cleared his throat. It sounded like he’d been crying. “My sister used to have one just like this,” he said.

Morgan asked, “Did you know my dad?”

“I met him once, a long time ago. It was only a few days, but—” He cut himself off. “I bet he was an incredible dad.”

Morgan nodded. Her throat felt very tight.

“Did he ever teach you what to do about bullies?” Harley asked.

She shook her head.

Harley grinned down at her. “Tell you what, next time I see you I’ll tell you all about it.”

“You promise?”

“I’ll even include all the bad words,” Harley agreed.

When she sees him next, he’s brought his little sister to New York – just for a weekend. His sister doesn’t look like the kind of girl who’d ever have had a Dora the Explorer watch; she’s got nails painted black and flaming red hair and she wears boots that make her taller than her brother. She also teaches Morgan how to do cartwheels and paints her nails baby blue for her.

The three of them go out for ice cream in Central Park, even though it’s winter and so chilly that Mom had made Morgan wear two scarves.

“I thought ice cream was for hot days,” Morgan says.

Harley shrugs. “We can get hot cocoa, too, if you want.”

“No, it’s fine,” Morgan says. “I want to hear about my dad. You promised.”

“I did, didn’t I? Well, I’ve gotta tell you, kid, it was the most exciting couple of days of my life, when I met your dad.”

“And yet he never thought to include me in all the excitement,” Felicity puts in.

“Well, Tony Stark didn’t break into _your_ lab,” Harley says.

“It wasn’t a lab, it was our garage.”

Harley turns back to Morgan. “So when your dad broke into my _lab_ ,” he says, “I threatened him with a potato gun…”

It’s difficult to get the full story, Morgan thinks, of her dad. She’s constantly trying to patch it together from all the people who knew him, like a detective getting to the bottom of a case. She wants to know everything there is to know. She wants to be just like him: a hero.

“…and then he drove off,” Harley says, getting to the end of his story.

“And that was it?”

“Not really,” Harley says. “He upgraded my lab after the whole Mandarin thing was over with. And then he kept in touch. Or – he would sort of check up on me, sometimes, without telling me. Ask my teachers how I was getting on in school, things like that. Every few months I’d get a text at, like, four am asking if I was doing alright.”

Morgan smiles to herself. There are things that she knows about her dad – things that were only for her – and she knows that when he had trouble sleeping, sometimes, he’d come into her room and make sure she was okay. He never meant to wake her, but if he did he’d pull her close and ramble about nonsense until she fell asleep again. Even now, she occasionally wakes up in the middle of the nights and thinks that she’s heard the creaking floorboard that signals his arrival.

“I miss him,” she tells Harley, looking up at the trees and blinking away tears. She doesn’t know why she says it; everyone already knows she misses her dad. But she needs someone to _hear_ it.

“Wherever he is, I’m sure he misses you, too,” Harley says. “You’re a pretty cool kid.”

**Author's Note:**

> i made myself cry like 3 times while writing this
> 
> come join me on tumblr @[morgans-starks](https://morgans-starks.tumblr.com/)


End file.
